duncan228
04-16-2009, 04:37 PM
An Upset Would Be Fun, But Lakers and Cavaliers Will Rule (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/16/AR2009041602420.html)
By Michael Wilbon
It would be great if the NBA didn't follow March Madness into complete predictability over the next eight weeks, if the NBA stuffed its postseason, which begins this weekend, with one surprise outcome after another. It would cause quite a stir if appealing young teams like the Portland Trail Blazers or Chicago Bulls disrupted the playoffs, but they're still too ripe. It would make for a nice story if Yao Ming or Dwight Howard was the last man standing, but it's pure fiction.
Come the first week of June the Los Angeles Lakers are going to play the Cleveland Cavaliers for the league's championship. The thrill will come in the adventure, in seeing who if anybody can scare the Lakers and Cavaliers along the way. And one of those teams, the defending champion Boston Celtics, will not be as scary as fans of great basketball would hope because the great Kevin Garnett has knee issues.
The Lakers and Cavaliers begin the playoffs glaring down at everybody else, Los Angeles still stinging over a loss in the NBA Finals a year ago and Cleveland supremely confident because it has LeBron James, the best end-to-end, four-quarter player and team leader since Michael Jordan was with the Bulls.
The question isn't who else we're looking at to be in the Finals, but who could even give the Lakers and Cavaliers trouble? Who could take a two games to one lead in a series against Cleveland? Who, in the preliminary rounds, could wipe that look of certainty off Kobe Bryant's face? Who could make Phil Jackson stand up and call a timeout?
Oh, the first couple of rounds should be a lot of fun for the simple reason that it's so difficult to separate the combatants, especially in the Western Conference, where Denver, San Antonio, Portland, Houston, Dallas and New Orleans are so completely indistinguishable. The only thing we can know for sure in the West is that the Lakers will beat Utah, maybe even in a sweep. As much as everybody loves to praise Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan, justifiably at that, the fact is his team has given him nothing the last three weeks and this won't be the battle we might have anticipated two months ago.
Everything else in the West is up for debate. There's not one matchup among Nuggets-Hornets, Spurs-Mavericks, Trail Blazers-Rockets that I can pick with any degree of confidence and I defy anybody else to, either. But out of that group of six teams, the one that could give the Lakers the willies is . . . Portland. I know, I know, I know, the Spurs still have Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, and they've shown a million times, like they did in beating the Hornets Wednesday night, that they're the most resourceful team of the decade. It doesn't make any sense that they can keep on keeping on without their best all-court player, Manu Ginobili. By finishing third, they wouldn't even have to face the Lakers until (again) the conference finals.
But the Trail Blazers are absolutely stacked. They've got the bigs (Greg Oden, Joel Pryzbilla, LaMarcus Aldridge, Channing Frye) to battle Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum, a star in Brandon Roy who can hold his own (at least in terms of scoring) with Kobe Bryant, and more usable depth than any team in the NBA. Truth is, the Lakers need to win the championship now because the Blazers are coming, and after they get some playoff seasoning it's going to be difficult for anybody, even the Lakers, to beat them.
Problem now is, the Blazers, after they get past poor Houston, will get the Lakers in the second round. The first-round series between Denver and New Orleans should be tasty, what with Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups going head-to-head, as well as Carmelo Anthony and David West. Denver, though, has too many weapons, too much athleticism, and a star who's tired of being left out of the big praise in Anthony. Denver should not only beat the Hornets, who are a bit of a disappointment this year, but also the Spurs to get to the conference finals . . . before losing to the Lakers. Denver just doesn't have enough size or play enough defense to truly scare Los Angeles.
The Eastern Conference is a lot easier to decipher. Cleveland will shut out Detroit in the first round, then do the same to Atlanta in the second round. There was the real possibility of an upset in the first round, but the Bulls didn't show up for a home game with the third-worst team in the conference, Toronto, on Wednesday night and let the No. 6 seed slip away. Orlando, the No. 3 seed, is just waiting to be taken. They seem to have very recently tuned out their coach, Stan Van Gundy, and could be well on the road to postseason disarray. And that doesn't even account for a style of offense -- abandon Dwight Howard after halftime and chuck the three -- which is ill-suited for postseason play.
The Sixers have more playoff experience than Chicago, but they don't figure to win more than a game or two against Orlando this time around. As fabulous a season as Dwyane Wade had for Miami, he doesn't have enough help to successfully fight off Atlanta, which should advance to the second round to play Boston, which even without Garnett will still sweep the Bulls.
If I were Doc Rivers, I would be comforted by the fact that I still have Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, not to mention Big Baby and Kendrick Perkins. Garnett is too important to the Celtics' success, however, to discount his absence.
That is good news for the Cavaliers, for the league's MVP LeBron James (over D-Wade and Kobe) and Coach-of-the-Year Mike Brown (over George Karl and Nate McMillan). It's ultimately pretty good news for basketball fans as well, if they can wade through the first six weeks of the interminable NBA postseason to get up to two final weeks of Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James, exactly the kind of personal matchup of basketball gods that makes some of us wait patiently until the end of June in the first place.
By Michael Wilbon
It would be great if the NBA didn't follow March Madness into complete predictability over the next eight weeks, if the NBA stuffed its postseason, which begins this weekend, with one surprise outcome after another. It would cause quite a stir if appealing young teams like the Portland Trail Blazers or Chicago Bulls disrupted the playoffs, but they're still too ripe. It would make for a nice story if Yao Ming or Dwight Howard was the last man standing, but it's pure fiction.
Come the first week of June the Los Angeles Lakers are going to play the Cleveland Cavaliers for the league's championship. The thrill will come in the adventure, in seeing who if anybody can scare the Lakers and Cavaliers along the way. And one of those teams, the defending champion Boston Celtics, will not be as scary as fans of great basketball would hope because the great Kevin Garnett has knee issues.
The Lakers and Cavaliers begin the playoffs glaring down at everybody else, Los Angeles still stinging over a loss in the NBA Finals a year ago and Cleveland supremely confident because it has LeBron James, the best end-to-end, four-quarter player and team leader since Michael Jordan was with the Bulls.
The question isn't who else we're looking at to be in the Finals, but who could even give the Lakers and Cavaliers trouble? Who could take a two games to one lead in a series against Cleveland? Who, in the preliminary rounds, could wipe that look of certainty off Kobe Bryant's face? Who could make Phil Jackson stand up and call a timeout?
Oh, the first couple of rounds should be a lot of fun for the simple reason that it's so difficult to separate the combatants, especially in the Western Conference, where Denver, San Antonio, Portland, Houston, Dallas and New Orleans are so completely indistinguishable. The only thing we can know for sure in the West is that the Lakers will beat Utah, maybe even in a sweep. As much as everybody loves to praise Jazz Coach Jerry Sloan, justifiably at that, the fact is his team has given him nothing the last three weeks and this won't be the battle we might have anticipated two months ago.
Everything else in the West is up for debate. There's not one matchup among Nuggets-Hornets, Spurs-Mavericks, Trail Blazers-Rockets that I can pick with any degree of confidence and I defy anybody else to, either. But out of that group of six teams, the one that could give the Lakers the willies is . . . Portland. I know, I know, I know, the Spurs still have Tim Duncan and Tony Parker, and they've shown a million times, like they did in beating the Hornets Wednesday night, that they're the most resourceful team of the decade. It doesn't make any sense that they can keep on keeping on without their best all-court player, Manu Ginobili. By finishing third, they wouldn't even have to face the Lakers until (again) the conference finals.
But the Trail Blazers are absolutely stacked. They've got the bigs (Greg Oden, Joel Pryzbilla, LaMarcus Aldridge, Channing Frye) to battle Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom and Andrew Bynum, a star in Brandon Roy who can hold his own (at least in terms of scoring) with Kobe Bryant, and more usable depth than any team in the NBA. Truth is, the Lakers need to win the championship now because the Blazers are coming, and after they get some playoff seasoning it's going to be difficult for anybody, even the Lakers, to beat them.
Problem now is, the Blazers, after they get past poor Houston, will get the Lakers in the second round. The first-round series between Denver and New Orleans should be tasty, what with Chris Paul and Chauncey Billups going head-to-head, as well as Carmelo Anthony and David West. Denver, though, has too many weapons, too much athleticism, and a star who's tired of being left out of the big praise in Anthony. Denver should not only beat the Hornets, who are a bit of a disappointment this year, but also the Spurs to get to the conference finals . . . before losing to the Lakers. Denver just doesn't have enough size or play enough defense to truly scare Los Angeles.
The Eastern Conference is a lot easier to decipher. Cleveland will shut out Detroit in the first round, then do the same to Atlanta in the second round. There was the real possibility of an upset in the first round, but the Bulls didn't show up for a home game with the third-worst team in the conference, Toronto, on Wednesday night and let the No. 6 seed slip away. Orlando, the No. 3 seed, is just waiting to be taken. They seem to have very recently tuned out their coach, Stan Van Gundy, and could be well on the road to postseason disarray. And that doesn't even account for a style of offense -- abandon Dwight Howard after halftime and chuck the three -- which is ill-suited for postseason play.
The Sixers have more playoff experience than Chicago, but they don't figure to win more than a game or two against Orlando this time around. As fabulous a season as Dwyane Wade had for Miami, he doesn't have enough help to successfully fight off Atlanta, which should advance to the second round to play Boston, which even without Garnett will still sweep the Bulls.
If I were Doc Rivers, I would be comforted by the fact that I still have Paul Pierce, Ray Allen and Rajon Rondo, not to mention Big Baby and Kendrick Perkins. Garnett is too important to the Celtics' success, however, to discount his absence.
That is good news for the Cavaliers, for the league's MVP LeBron James (over D-Wade and Kobe) and Coach-of-the-Year Mike Brown (over George Karl and Nate McMillan). It's ultimately pretty good news for basketball fans as well, if they can wade through the first six weeks of the interminable NBA postseason to get up to two final weeks of Kobe Bryant vs. LeBron James, exactly the kind of personal matchup of basketball gods that makes some of us wait patiently until the end of June in the first place.